Update: green hydrogen |
World first for Lhyfe at Saint-Nazaire
Hydrogen production on a floating platform
There is growing interest worldwide in the idea of hydrogen production offshore using electricity generated by offshore wind turbines, “allowing all countries with a coastline to access renewable green hydrogen, produced locally,” says France- based green hydrogen start-up Lhyfe, which describes itself as a “producer of hydrogen whose production emits zero CO2
.”
Lhyfe is claiming a world first, with hydrogen production on a floating platform in the port of Saint-Nazaire. “Until now, no one has ever produced hydrogen at sea,” the company says. The platform was inaugurated on 22 September. Following six months of green hydrogen production trials at the quay, the floating platform will be taken out into the Atlantic, about 20 km off the coast of Le Croisic, to demonstrate fully automated hydrogen production in hostile marine conditions, using power from a floating wind turbine.
The sea trials are expected to last about 12 months.
The hydrogen production equipment – which has the capacity to produce up to 400 kg of renewable green hydrogen per day, equivalent to 1 MW of power – is housed in what Lhyfe calls its Sealhyfe platform. This has been installed on the WAVEGEM wave energy platform developed by Geps Techno.
Lhyfe is making use of facilities provided by the SEM-REV offshore testing site, operated by French engineering school Centrale Nantes. The floating turbine to be used to power the Sealhyfe platform was installed within the SEM-REV testing site in 2018.
The platform will be installed less than a kilometre from the floating wind turbine, fixed to the seabed by a system of anchors and
Above: Hydrogen production on a floating platform at Saint-Nazaire
connected to the SEM-REV site’s underwater hub using an umbilical specifically designed for this application (energy and data transfer). The test programme encompasses all stages of hydrogen production at sea, including: making use of power from the floating wind turbine; pumping, desalinating and purifying seawater; and electrolysis.
Among issues to be addressed will be the effects of platform motion on the hydrogen production system, environmental stresses deriving from being located at sea (premature ageing, corrosion, temperature variations, etc) and the challenges of operating in an isolated
environment, with the Sealhyfe platform having to operate fully automatically, without the physical intervention of an operator, except for scheduled maintenance periods.
At the end of the trial, Lhyfe says it will have a substantial volume of data, which should allow it to design mature offshore production systems, and “to deploy robust and proven technologies on a large scale, in keeping with the EU’s objective of producing 10 million tonnes a year of renewable hydrogen by 2030.” The electrolyser was supplied and optimised for these “exceptional operating conditions” by Plug Power. Plug and Lhyfe say they have
Above: Inauguration day 10 | October 2022|
www.modernpowersystems.com
Above: Matthieu Guesné, chairman, CEO and founder of Lhyfe
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